The Bee Gees

The Bee Gees rise to pop superstardom in the late seventies
during the disco era is well documented, but few know about their much
darker beginnings.
Under their original name British Ghouls, the trio recorded
Satanic Royalty back in 1964, years before anything resembling metal
would appear.
It is truly a landmark in early metal history, a long-lost and virtually
forgotten gem, featuring crushing riffs played with the most primitive of
early electric guitars, but riffs as heavy as any band since.
Lyrically they were all over the place, with nods to satanism
(the title track and the 10-minute epic "We Bow To Him"),
horror ("British Ghouls", "Zombies From The Isle Of Man"), even an
absurd tribute to Naziism ("Der Fuhrer").
Not only that, there was "Battle Hogs", a song with suspicious
similarities to
Black Sabbath's
hit "War Pigs", which wouldn't come out until 6 years later.
Then there was the cover art, an odd image of Donald Duck as a Nazi,
with no mention of the band name anywhere.
The album
proved massively popular to a small segment of music listeners, but
over the heads of practically everyone else, and they soon decided they
wanted to make money rather than follow their beliefs.
Thus, they crafted stage names (contrary to popular belief, they were not
brothers at all),
shortened their name to Bee Gees,
and embarked on their second musical journey.
Satanic Royalty would be the only album released under the British
Ghouls monicker, and it remains one of the most curiously influential
metal albums of all time.